Judge Dillon’s revenge. Development vs transportation has been a long running battle in Virginia. Northern Virginia’s local government politicians never met a developer (or developer’s campaign contribution) they didn’t love. Virginia’s state legislators love NoVa growth since it provides more state tax money to spread around like party favors to their downstate constituencies. However, those same state legislators loathe the idea of repatriating many of those tax dollars back to Northern Virginia to fund needed transportation improvements. The local pols blame the state pols for failing to fund transportation in NoVa. The state pols blame the locals for ineffective land use planning. Meanwhile, both localities and the state are throwing their shoulders out of joint patting themselves on the back over winning half of the new Amazon HQ2 deal. There have even been rumors that Apple may be looking at NoVa for another 20,000 jobs. What could possibly go wrong?

No need to wait for chaos. While Amazon HQ2, Apple and the “densificiation” of Tysons are all largely future events, the chaos of underfunded transportation is already here. Loudoun County’s population grew 97% between 1990 and 2000, 84% from 2000 to 2010 and 27.5% from 2010 to 2017. Meanwhile, over 50% of Loudoun workers commute to work outside of Loudoun County (hint: they are not working in West Virginia). At the same time, a veritable caravan of immigrants from The Socialist Republic of Maryland cross the Virginia border every morning seeking a better life through employment in Virginia. The predictable result is that the American Legion Bridge has become a chokepoint that backs up the Beltway for miles, especially in the evening.

Adding insult to injury. The same kind of advanced technology that so enthralls Virginia’s politicians in the HQ2 deal creates nightmares for McLean residents. Navigation apps like Waze and Google Maps are being blamed for showing Loudon commuters and Maryland economic refugees how to bypass Beltway traffic by using the surface streets of McLean. The resulting backups on streets that are often narrow and shoulder-less wreak havoc on the daily lives of those living in the affected neighborhoods. One can only wonder how much worse this will get once the new construction in Tysons is completed and Amazon HQ2 starts adding traffic to Arlington, Alexandria and Tysons.

It’s good to be Queen. Del. Kathleen Murphy, D-McLean, has a plan. Privatize McLean’s public streets for the exclusive use of McLean residents, at least during rush hour. Murphy’s HB295 has been carried over from the 2018 session. The bill is summarized as follows …

“Allows counties that operate under the urban county executive form of government (Fairfax County) by ordinance to develop a program to issue permits to residents of a designated area that will allow such residents to make turns into or out of the neighborhood during certain times of the day where such turns would otherwise be restricted.”

It seems Del. Murphy will protect herself and her well-heeled neighbors in McLean by simply banning traffic she finds inconvenient. Let the commuters eat cake. It’s easy to feel sympathy for the residents of the many areas in Northern Virginia being ruined by clogged streets full of cut through traffic. However, it’s hard to see where this ends. Will the far less affluent citizens of the Route 1 corridor be able to ban cut through traffic on their streets too? Or will this remedy be reserved for Del. Murphy and her wealthy neighbors in McLean? Limousine liberalism anyone?

Correction: HB295 was incorrectly described as pre-filed in the original version of this article. In fact, it was carried over from the 2018 session. The content has been changed to reflect this correction.

The most sought-after subdivisions in the Fredericksburg region are the ones with cul-de-sacs that border undeveloped and unbuildable land! I suspect it’s the same reason people commute to Loudoun and it’s subdivisions with cul-de-sacs also.

Of course some folks live on significant sized lots in places like Great Falls that effectively keeps the riff-raff far enough way to maintain comfort!

The thing is, despite all the talk about “walkable urban” and living the urban life – in Washington as well as in most other urbanized areas in the US – people drive their cars – not a little – a LOT and any semblance of patience and consideration for others is long gone If a road is uber-congested, they will drive through folks neighborhoods in a heartbeat to try to feel better about it – not that most of it is futile and just imposes on others – too bad…..

Cities and towns and Arlington and Henrico have road responsibilities and capabilities that counties lack and that is the ability to protect neighborhoods with traffic calming … traffic restricting curbs and speed bumps, etc and that’s the solution to the folks who don’t give a rip about driving through neighborhoods Make it painful and counter-productive and they’ll stop doing it.

The centralized road management regime under the Imperial Clown Show in Richmond has failed for the better part of a century now. It’s time for the General Assembly to admit they are not up to the task and to de-evolve the management of roads (including the funding of roads) to the localities (counties as well as cities).

I have to say, travel in NoVa is nightmarish. My son attends GMU in Fairfax, and we visit him every so often. We scrupulously avoid rush hour, but we routinely hit stop-and-go traffic on I-95 during the middle of the day, typically as far south as Spotsylvania. It’s so bad that I hate making the trip. I mean, I really hate making the trip. I would not survive if I had to commute every day.

Once you get off the major arteries, it’s not so bad. We can drive around the City of Fairfax without too much aggravation — not much worse than Richmond, really. But, then, we’re not commuting on the major arteries.

Even this Henrico resident can see that NoVa traffic congestion desperately cries out for a solution. Murphy’s solution — balkanizing the transportation network — would only make problems worse. Don is absolutely right. Once one area received such a dispensation, everyone would want special treatment for themselves.

Finally, Fairfax County region has gotten the message, has reversed course on its strategy of low-density, autocentric land use, and is moving in the right direction. Re-development of the current dysfunctional land use patterns into walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods served by mass transit is an evolutionary process. It took NoVa 50 years to get into this predicament, and it will take 50 years to get out of it.

I think there are ways to accelerate the cure to NoVa’s traffic blues. However, these ideas require bold thinking. One idea would be to incorporate Tysons into a city. Erect parking garages on the outskirts of Tysons but ban driving within core Tysons. Rt 7 becomes a thoroughfare with no entries or exits in Tysons. Create a circular road around Tysons available only to cheap public buses and delivery trucks making deliveries to the merchants in Tysons. Essentially … copy Reston but make the core roads pedestrian walkways rather than vehicle based roads. Turn the parking lots into parks which serve as venues for small concerts, etc. Allow drinking in pubic and outdoor bands on Friday and Saturday nights (a la Louisville). Get people into the mindset that they don’t need to own a car. You still need to expand Rt 123, 495, etc but I think you can force walkable, mixed-use land patterns rather than sit back and hope people eventually come to their senses.

So what’s the difference between banning motor vehicle traffic in Tysons and restricting non-resident traffic in McLean?

Putting garages around the outskirts of Tysons would contribute nothing to reduce cut-through traffic in surrounding communities, including McLean and Vienna. Indeed, depending on how the “no-drive” boundaries were drawn, it could make cut-through traffic even worse by effectively closing down entrance ramps to the Beltway at Route 7 and Route 123. The cut through traffic is chiefly Maryland residents trying to avoid the Beltway for as long as possible. Mostly in the PM but also in the AM.

The problems with through traffic on Routes 7 & 123 were raised by the public before the 2010 Comp Plan amendment was adopted. And VDOT stated over and over that it would operate both roads to keep through traffic moving. For example, VDOT told Fairfax County and the landowners that it would not allow any street parking on those roads. But they were ignored. Remember the goal was to enrich landowners rather than to use a good location to build a city in the suburbs. Reston, which had more green fields that would make easier construction than Tysons that needed enormous retrofits, was ignored. Tysons was selected because its landowners wanted it selected.

Re: banned traffic in Tyson vs restricted traffic in McLean … the ban applies to everybody, the restrictions favor McLean residents with special privileges on public property.

Re: Restrictions in Tyson not helping McLean … true. That’s why I said Rt 123 needs to be expanded, etc. However, if the easiest way into Tysons becomes Metro (just like the easiest way into Manhattan on a workday is the subway) then more people may take Metro. My main goal with the idea was to accelerate Jim’s concept of walkable urbanism.

VDOT and corruption in Virginia … you are preaching to the choir. I don’t think Jim ever really understood that solving Virginia’s genetic predisposition to corrupt political practices is a pre-requisite to functional human development patterns.

Re: FFX County becoming New Jersey … Inevitable in the long run but too big a bite for now. Tysons, as a city in Virginia, would no longer be part of FFX County. The key for Tysons is to create enough density and amenities that people would want to live there, not just commute there for work.

One other point I forgot to mention … $5 tolls to get onto or off of the American Legion Bridge in Virginia. Everybody. Every day. 24 X 7. Money to be set aside to expand the bridge.

I do not see how expanding American Legion Bridge solves anything. Best I can tell it will only make matters far worse. I also think shutting down local roads to commuter traffic, in this particularly instance, is an idea that likely has great merit, because it is draconian, will FORCE radical change.

I also think it is long past time that the power structure in Fairfax be put in its proper place. You boys created this problem to enrich yourself at other people’s expense. Now your gig is up. It is time for you boys to surrender your ill gotten goods. Starting with your right to use tolls. No more using tolls for you. So get yourselves right now at the back of the line with everyone else you’ve been screwing for decades.

River crossings (i.e. bridges) are always chokepoints. That’s why they are among the first non-military infrastructure bombed by the enemy during war.

The American Legion Bridge was built in 1962 as a six lane bridge. It was expanded to 10 lanes in 1992. Since 1992 the population of Fairfax County has grown by approximately 300,000 people, Montgomery County, MD (on the other side of the bridge) has grown by a similar amount. “Up river” Loudoun County has added 330,000 people over that time and Prince George’s County, MD has added another 200,000.

More people = more in taxes = a need for more infrastructure.

The four counties primarily connected by the American Legion Bridge have added a combined 1.1M people since the bridge was last expanded. More people have come to the four counties connected by the American Legion Bridge since it was last expanded than live in Henrico County, Chesterfield County and the City of Richmond combined.

The easy answer would be to let Fairfax and Loudoun Counties keep all the taxes that are raised in those counties to spend in those counties. The transportation problems would be solved in 5 years.

But How? That is the question. Enlarging the bridge solves nothing. Just recreates more gridlock, particularly on Md. side, because Virginia is gridlocked already.

Forced mass transit plus stripping regional uses out of Fairfax County is the primary answer. That can be done. And Amazon can facilitate the process. More roads, wider bridges in just another iteration of the regional suicide ongoing now for nearly 40 years.

It’s time to put the fat cats at the back of line, commuting 4 hours a day, until the problem is solved.

The problem with the Silver Line is that it’s a spur line. If one lives near the line, it’s great. Walk, drive, bus or bike to the station. But most Tysons workers don’t live near the Silver Line. For many people, using the Silver Line requires a trip to downtown D.C. to get on the Silver Line. WMATA’s projections for the Silver Line Tysons stations were always humble compared to downtown D.C. stations or even suburban MD stations.

Of course, this was pointed out to Fairfax County but the drive to enrich Tysons landowners was too strong and the County closed its eyes to the limitations. The County also ignored its own traffic studies that indicated Routes 7 & 123, as well as the Beltway and the DTR, fail consistently once Tysons is built to 84 MSF. While the County did add more road improvements, total gridlock remains a sword hanging over everyone’s head.

Fairfax County would never sit still for Tysons becoming an independent city. The Supervisors are looking to spend many more real estate tax dollars from Tysons. At best, it will have its own supervisor some day.

1. Build a second span and use each span for traffic in each direction. This is how the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was expanded.

2. Build a second bridge along with an outer beltway north of the the existing beltway / bridge complex. This is roughly what Maryland wants to do.

If I told you that a fast growing area need to build more schools or more sewage treatment plants you wouldn’t bat an eye. You wouldn’t say, “every time we expand the sewage treatment plant our population increases and we have to expand it again. This is suicide.”

While Maryland has not yet selected a specific solution for the ALB, which must be a new span since the understructure of the existing bridge cannot hold any more lanes, Maryland has successfully included Governor Hogan’s Traffic Relief Plan in both the new Constrained Long Range Plan (CLRP) and the six-year Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) for 2019-2024. The approved plan would add four toll lanes (two in either direction) that would connect to the Virginia Express Lanes and extend around the Beltway and up I-270. Inclusion in the CLRP qualifies projects for federal funding. Inclusion in the TIP provides federal funding ceteris paribus.

Virginia has successfully included the extension of its Express Lanes to the ALB in the CLRP. VDOT will work with MDOT on the timing and engineering. The two states also need to resolve how Express Lanes that exempt HOV traffic from tolls will interface with Toll Lanes that do not have such an exception.

The two states working together will clear up the bottleneck that backs up traffic in Virginia; give drivers a choice to pay for quicker travel without removing any general purpose lanes; and allow on-time express bus service between Tysons and Bethesda (realizing there is a bit of a drive from Bethesda to the Beltway). Ditto for Silver Spring-Bethesda-Tysons.

I know this road pavement like the back of my hand. I am very very skeptical about any improvement to the American Legion bridge that is going to materially improve the Maryland side of the bridge or the Virginia side, either, absent a massive remake of the way Fairfax configures and operates its land use, and finds far better mass transit solutions. Until that happens, you guys are going to continue to live in a traffic nightmare, except perhaps for the rich who can afford to buy homes anywhere they please, and simply write off the tolls, as chump change as many of us do. And let the rest of our citizens suffer ever more.

In order to complete the projects, there needs to be more capacity at the site of the American Legion Bridge. MDOT engineers have long stated that the existing span cannot be widened. It’s understructure is at capacity. Hence, there will be a need to construct a second crossing near the current one. MD is still evaluating its preferred local alternative. But it has to be a second crossing of some type.

I think it’s critical to get some form of reliable mass transit between Montgomery County and Fairfax County. It’s too expensive to tunnel under the River and there would be hell to pay if there were any proposal to run an elevated rail line between Tysons and Maryland. That leaves the use of Express/Toll Lanes for express busses. Express busses are being operated successfully on the Virginia Beltway Express Lanes and should work just as well between the two states if there is more capacity for Toll/Express Lanes.

“Hence, there will be a need to construct a second crossing near the current one. MD is still evaluating its preferred local alternative. But it has to be a second crossing of some type.”

Yes, TMT, I read that on the Alliance site. There may be a good way to do a crossing span that facilitates mass transit. That I would favor because it eats traffic instead of breeding it. But anything there that breeds more traffic will compound the problems grossly, spreading them across the Md. and Va. countryside and suburban side near and far. That result threatens both sides of the river gorge and and beyond.

On the Md side, it is because a great increase of traffic there will greatly compound problems by reason of location of what is already built there, all the way to Frederick Md, and to I-95 north off I-495. Nearer the bridge this includes a complicated series of very major cross roads and confluent roads poorly designed and likely un-fixable. It also includes the extreme limitations imposed by geographic features, including rivers and gorges and chain bridge, and military installations, and historic lands and parks, aqueducts, canals and other structures, and neighborhoods. This is why “MD is still evaluating its preferred local alternative.” And why MD quite likely might well never find a real solution. But will pretend to find a solution that is not there. Another words Md might cave to false solutions for political reasons. So spend huge sums to delay the problem, and make it ever more difficult fix after another few decades of ruining ever more neighborhoods, natural wonders, and peoples’ quality of life. Like we always have done to date with N. Va. problems.

I am not against more roads. I am against taking the easy way out that shuts down our future because we refuse to take the hard steps necessary to honestly solve what is the real problem, the one that will continue to spin off ever more problems until we confront it and fix it – bad use planning and development in Fairfax C0unty.

I remain surprised that people can’t understand how more people, more jobs and more cars require more roads. For some reason the Smart Growthers and their allies in government can’t understand this. They make bizarre statements like, “Even if you expand the roads they’ll eventually get congested.” No kidding. Growth requires more infrastructure.

As far as DC … most surveys don’t put DC in the Top 5 for traffic congestion overall. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the places that are congested are horribly congested – The American Legion Bridge, Rt 66 (especially inside the Beltway), Rt 123, I95 9especially south of the Beltway).

Note that Greensboro has the least congestion. The Greensboro-High Point metro area grew by less than 1 percent from 2015 to 2016. It’s grown about 4.5 percent since 2010.

My guess is that there are no traffic jams in Chernoybl.

If you want rapid growth be ready to pay for the infrastructure. If you don’t want rapid growth then why did we just pay out $1.7B to lure 25,000 new workers to NoVa? The General Assembly needs to pick its poison – low growth or a lot of money for infrastructure.

Don asks: “If you want rapid growth be ready to pay for the infrastructure. If you don’t want rapid growth then why did we just pay out $1.7B to lure 25,000 new workers to NoVa?”

The answer, Don, is simple. That Amazon locale and plan done right works brilliantly. It solves problems while it creates great wealth and opportunity for people and also offers the region the opportunity to solve more yet more problems located elsewhere, including Fairfax.

An American Legion Bridge expansion that breeds ever more traffic compounds, expands, spreads, delays and deepens existing problems. It’s potential for good is extremely limited. It’s potential for harm is great. Perhaps its greatest harm is that it gives us yet another excuse not to solve what is the real problem, land use in Fairfax County. An expanded bridge should not be allowed to pour ever more fuel onto that problem in Fairfax, doing ever more harm to ever more generations of citizens.

The current spate of road use restrictions may have been copied from Montgomery County MD but it’s Arlington and Falls Church that have applied this technique with abandon in NoVa, along with “traffic calming” practices that in my opinion do more to foment road rage than calm. Why? In those, you have two jurisdictions that have turned their backs, literally, on commuters from the Great Beyond and, in the process, on regional planning and on intergovernmental comity. And the State, which is supposed to take the regional view and do what’s best for the region if not the State as a whole, simply isn’t doing its share to solve the problem, but leaving it to the squabbling local authorities who serve a different constituency driven by NIMBY. Even I-66, that vaunted experiment in congestion pricing, mainly has succeeded in showing how desperately wedded so many still are to POV, 1-person-in-the-car, commuting that they’ll pay those obscene daily prices to get downtown on time. What alternatives are there? For most, it’s the back streets of Fairfax and Arlington, or a Metro system that isn’t reliable, or change the work location (telecommute, change jobs), or move closer in and join the urbanistas. Now, I’m all in favor of the latter, but should we be surprised at the price of close-in housing these days? And to this, we are adding Amazon? Wow!

My Brother, Oh, My Brother, we must heed the words of our Father lest we fall into a foolish Civil War between Brothers, Maryland versus Virginia, against our Father’s wishes:

“The Center of Gravity of our Nation’s Capital is not Tyson’s Corner and Chantilly, these are hinterlands, and hind parts. The Center of Gravity of our Nation’s Capital are the lands between Georgetown and our National Congress Building he built, and Alexandria, and the Alexandria (Arlington) Heights.” Thus spoke George Washington, first President, United States.

I don’t think most of the counties in Virginia are competent at doing roads nor do they actually want to fund them – they want the state to do that.

The back and forth discussion here, demonstrates the wildly varying views about what to do or not – and the state and VDOT are not going to step in
when the people in the locality itself cannot agree on what should be done.

I still continue to say if you go to other places like Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, etc.. it’s just as bad as NoVa at rush hour and in most all of these places – except for strategically fixing bottlenecks – what exactly would you tear down existing commercial and residential properties to make more roads.

Do folks remember when they widened I-66 in recent years and tried to minimize taking properties but did remove trees etc… and people were up
in arms about the loss of their buffers?

NoVa is free to raise taxes and condemn properties for more roads – they can do that right now – so blaming the state for not doing that is funny!!!

And it’s not like NoVa is not already spending over 200 billion of dollars on transportation projects – take a look:

The traffic IS BAD and the frustration levels high and justified but the reality is that money is not going to fix the problem. You’re basically out of places to really add major roads without tearing down commercial and residential properties. Even new bridges would result in doing that

People say bad planning caused this AND they say it’s VDOT’s fault but the localities themselves did the land-use planning and never set aside land for future roads…. they just approve development then blame others for the traffic.

That”s what is going to happen with Amazon… they’re going to bring 20,000 more workers to that land bay – and the result is more to be a lot more cars on the area roads.

But again – whether you’re talking about New York or Seattle or LA or just about any of the major urban areas – the problem is the same. You can’t really tear down existing buildings for major new roads…. it’s too expensive but more than that – it’s a regional network issue. Even if you put in a new road or widen – all that does is move the congestion to the next chokepoint.

You can call it bad planning but VDOT and the State do not tell the localities how much land to develop and here’s the thing – localities like Fairfax have ALWAYS had the ability to take over their roads just like Arlington and Henrico have… they’ve had that ability. They’ve also had the ability to designated future road corridors and not let those future corridors be developed – to buy those rights-of-ways to preserve them. Advocating that
we “take away” this responsibility from the State is laughable… NoVa voted the development and took no responsibility for designating future road corridors so now it’s the State’s fault for not letting Nova do their roads? yeah ,, right!!

Even now – NoVa has the right and the ability to designate new roads and to condemn property for the right-of-way – they have that right already – no one is stopping them.. !

“[I]t’s a regional network issue. Even if you put in a new road or widen – all that does is move the congestion to the next chokepoint.” Agreed — on both points, precisely so! But that merely underscores: this is NOT something a single small jurisdiction wedded to obstruction, like Arlington, will ever decide to deal with in a way that satisfies regional and State-level planning concerns. Arlington has gone out of its way to narrow or even to block the streets under its control and to reduce the width of State highways where possible wherever they enter the County, so as to deter commuters from adjacent jurisdictions who would otherwise “cut through.” Accommodation-of-regional-interests be damned. This is something the State ought to insist upon, and pay for, and it does not do so. Yes it could delegate that authority and the money to pay for it to a regional (NoVa) transportation authority but it hasn’t done that either. I’m not holding my breath, but simply assigning the blame where it belongs.

You provide a link to the latest TIP approved by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB). This is a noble effort to coordinate the transportation planning by all those local jurisdictions in NoVa and the tri-State region, as well as the States and the feds; but the TPB has no teeth! It cannot tell Arlington, or Falls Church, or their like, to do X or Y for the benefit of the region as a whole. Meanwhile, citizen frustration only grows.

Fairfax County made a conscience and determined decision to build a city of office buildings and regional retail malls without anywhere near enough residential, all to be fed by interstate and inter-regional roads serving others. These intentional acts emptied its neighbors of both office and regional retail uses, and it limited them to bedroom communities, serving the financial coffers of Fairfax county.

Not nice! Fairfax’s plan worked beautifully from 1960 to 1980, nearly bankrupting Arlington County, while it flooded Arlington, and Falls Church, and Langley with commuter traffic that was sucked into and exhaled out of Fairfax daily. That malpractice continues to this day.

Arlington and Falls Church and now Langley and Mclean have ever since simply then defending themselves against Fairfax’s predatory land use and development practices. And they must by necessity continue today. And so long at those practices continue unabated.

As to the Civil War between Brothers, that too has been going of for at least the same amount of time, and for the very same reasons. Hence there is no outer beltway between Md. and Va., nor is there any real viable solution to this day or in foreseeable future to the existing beltway gridlock from and after Fairfax turned its section of the Capital Beltway into its Main Street, to the detriment of rights of all interstate traffic passing through Fairfax, including Marylanders, and all other citizens trying to drive up and down the eastern seaboard, or around the nations capital city. The problem lies with Fairfax.

Arlington has it’s own view I agree but it’s hard to believe they can obstruct the rest of the region from going forward.

My view is that the TPB document actually reflects the actual regional planning… and it contains those projects that have been identified, prioritized and funded.

If that’s not it – then what are the projects that need to be done in the region that are not in that plan?

I simply do not see any way for that region to really add any more major roads that would improve the region as a whole. I see places here and there where some improvements can be made to enhance , reduce bottlenecks, some connectors.. etc.. but I just don’t see another beltway or major interstate type road … I don’t see it in planning documents and I don’t see it in the words of the critics either.. I just don’t see any big movement in favor on some particular regional road….

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